


Scars Unseen

by tarinumenesse



Series: Lone Moon [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Dreams, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Missing Scene, Permanent Injury, Revenge, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-09-28 06:13:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20421242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarinumenesse/pseuds/tarinumenesse
Summary: For over a year, Dimitri's task has been clear to him. Destroy Edelgard. Extract the poison and purify Fódlan. His fate is clear, and so even if he wishes to rest, death and pain always find him. It is his duty to bear the cost and scars of it.(Or in which Dimitri loses his sight.)





	1. Blind Rage

Dimitri watched the woman from where he hid on the archbishop’s balcony. She wandered up the hill in a leisurely fashion, taking time to study the plants and marvel at the monument before her. For the first time in many moons, Dimitri felt uneasy.

Of course, his discomfort may have stemmed from the wound that he had carried back from his latest venture into the Kingdom. The Imperial soldiers he had been tracking were dead. But they had given him the final gift of a deep gash in his leg that hampered movement even after two weeks’ rest at Garreg Mach. He had hoped to have more time to recover before taking on another fight.

‘Are you scared?’ Glenn asked. He was watching the woman with a critical eye.

Dimitri shook his head. ‘She’s just a commoner from the Empire,’ he said. ‘She’s probably merely curious and passing through.’

Glenn laughed. ‘And if she is not?’

‘Then I’ll kill her.’

The woman set up her camp in the cathedral itself. Dimitri watched her carefully from the hidden places in the walls originally designed to allow repairs to the vaulted ceiling and glass windows. She was loud and careless, wandering about the cathedral and gasping at the artworks and statues like she was on some academic leisure tour.

Dimitri wanted to think she was harmless simply so he could rest. But there was a consistent nagging in his mind, the voice that had driven him during his days at the Officers Academy before the confirmation of the Flame Emperor’s identity.

‘Something isn’t right,’ Dimitri whispered to himself.

He hung back and waited.

The woman stayed in the cathedral, alone, for two days. Dimitri watched in silence as she slept, ate, carved scraps of wood.

‘When will this end?’ Glenn complained. ‘Blood, princeling. That’s what we asked for.’

‘Wait,’ Dimitri said.

On the third day, two men arrived dragging a third between them. The captive, in rich green robes that revealed he had a decent stash of money, had a length of fabric tied around his eyes and a gag in his mouth. He turned his head as though trying to determine his surroundings. Moans and the sounds of pleas issued around the gag.

Dimitri clenched the handle of the sword he had scavenged from the dead Imperial soldiers’ campsite. ‘Slavers,’ he growled. She was not innocent. She was part of that same seething mass that poisoned the very air with her filth.

The woman, meanwhile, jumped to her feet and clapped her hands in glee.

‘What did you find?’ she asked, her voice echoing through the cathedral. ‘And how much will he fetch?’

‘A mage,’ one of the men said, shoving the captive to the ground.

‘Lovely,’ the woman cooed.

She ducked down beside the mage and pulled down the blindfold. The mage grunted and cast about with his tied hands. Even from a distance, Dimitri could see the fear in his movements. The white rage began to burn in Dimitri’s veins, urging him forward.

‘Pretty eyes,’ the woman commented. ‘Yes, he will do well. We’ll make a good profit out of this one.’

Dimitri sprung from his hiding place with a growl and sprinted towards the woman, sword raised.

The woman screeched and scrambled away. One of the men drew a sword, the other an axe. Dimitri flew at them.

The next moments seemed to occur out of time. Dimitri quickly overpowered the smaller of the pair, the man with the axe, and removed his head. The one with the sword was harder to defeat based on strength alone, but he was badly trained. Dimitri sniggered as he fought, wondering how weak the mage must be to have been captured by two such buffoons.

The swordsman fell with Dimitri’s blade through his heart. As he pulled the sword from his corpse, Dimitri looked up at the woman.

She had not run. She stood nearby, back to a pillar, her fists raised. She had no weapon beyond small silver gauntlets with blunted spikes across the knuckles. Dwarfed by her surroundings, she nonetheless looked fierce and angry as she hissed at him. It was amusing.

‘Here, kitty,’ Dimitri taunted. ‘Not so innocent as you seemed, are you?’

‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ the woman spat.

‘Many people ask me that,’ Dimitri replied as he stepped towards her.

The woman raised an eyebrow.

‘Usually I’m the last person they ever speak to,’ Dimitri said as he attacked.

The air crackled with electricity. Dimitri cried out as his sword fell from his hands and he was thrown through the air. He landed on his back some distance from the woman, his head hitting the floor. There was momentarily blindness before the vaults above him came into focus.

Seiros, she was a mage too.

Clear, musical laughter echoed through the cathedral.

‘Underestimated me, boy? That is a mistake you will not have the chance to make again.’

Dimitri fumbled for a weapon, but there was nothing. Before he could think of a solution, the woman landed on his stomach, knocking the air from his lungs. Her hands gripped his throat, pressing down. He gasped as she leaned close to him.

‘How long have you been watching me?’ she asked. ‘What kind of disgusting creature are you?’

Dimitri’s head began to spin. Seiros, this was it. Death. It had come for him too.

‘I’ll make sure you never see anything again.’

The pressure around his throat eased and Dimitri swallowed air. Between his gulps he saw the glint of sunlight on the woman’s gauntlet as her fist fell.

The pain was immediate. Dimitri screamed. He couldn’t see. There was nothing but black agony, red madness.

‘Scum like you, snakes like you, have no place in this world!’ the woman screeched.

Sothis, let this be it, Dimitri thought. Let this be death. Let it be all.

There was a choking sound. Dimitri wheezed as a dead weight fell against him. He lay there, still gasping for air, still wishing for death.

Instead, there was a grunt and the weight rolled off him to the side.

‘Are you all right?’

The voice was high-pitched, but a man’s. Dimitri turned onto his right side, lifting his hands and covering his face. Sticky blood coated his fingers. He could feel cuts and grazes around his eye. Goddess, no.

Hands tugged at Dimitri’s wrists, pulling his hands away from his face.

‘By Cichol,’ the voice breathed. ‘Here, let me…’

Dimitri swatted blindly at the voice. ‘Don’t!’ he sobbed. ‘Let me die. Please.’

‘Don’t worry, you won’t die from this. Here.’

A warmth covered Dimitri’s eye, and peace spread through his body as the darkness faded into a white light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am finally addressing one of the ways I imagine Dimitri losing his eye. In the Lone Moon timeline, this takes place about halfway between Dedue's death and Byleth's return.


	2. Deaf longing

‘So if Claude is leading the left flank of the Golden Deer, we will have Ingrid fall back to this point.’

Dimitri groaned at the voice that interrupted his sleep. He did not want to wake up. The dark was so welcoming and calm.

‘Dimitri? Are you paying attention?’

Dimitri opened his eyes. He was seated, his arms folded on a desktop with his head resting upon them. The first thing he saw was a fireplace with a flag of the Blue Lions hanging above it.

‘Did you get any sleep last night?’

Dimitri lifted his head and looked towards the voice. His breath caught as he saw the person sitting opposite him. Her large, pale green eyes blinked languidly at him as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

‘It isn’t like you to doze off,’ she commented.

Dimitri’s chair clattered to the floor as he jumped to his feet. He strode around the desk and grabbed her hand. As he drew her from her seat and pulled her against him, he wrapped his arms tightly around her. She was warm and real. Her perfume, a light floral scent, made Dimitri's head spin as he closed his eyes and lifted one hand to cradle the back of her head.

‘It was a dream,’ he whispered. ‘No, a nightmare. Tell me none of it was true, Byleth.’

Byleth giggled. He held her closer, revelling in the feel of her body against his.

‘Dimitri?’

She pressed gently but firmly against his chest. Dimitri sighed, but obeyed and drew back. He let his hands rest on her arms, unwilling to break contact just yet. He wanted to convince himself that she was really there.

Byleth lifted one of her hands and caressed Dimitri’s cheek. As always, her expression was difficult to read. But her eyes narrowed slightly as she studied his face.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘What dream?’

Dimitri reached up and caught her fingers, lifting them away before he was tempted to take things further than these innocent touches. He had to control himself. Consider her position.

‘I had a terrible nightmare,’ he said. ‘You were gone.’

Byleth’s nose wrinkled as she frowned. ‘Where did I go?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. You disappeared. We never found your body…I sent people to search, but they always came back empty handed. We…I…I couldn’t manage without you. Everything fell apart.’

Byleth stepped back from Dimitri, lifting her hand to her chin as she tilted her head.

‘You haven’t known me that long,’ she said. ‘I doubt my absence would cause such a stir.’

Dimitri grabbed her hands again, partly because he was desperate to persuade her of the distress he had felt during the nightmare, but also because the fear still lingered. He was scared that if he let her go, she would vanish and he would be as utterly alone as he had dreamed he was.

‘Of course it would,’ he said. ‘Byleth, you can’t know how much I have come to rely on you. If you were to disappear like that…I would never recover. I would go mad. I cannot exist without you. Please, promise me that you will never leave me.’

Byleth smiled. ‘You are very worked up,’ she said. ‘Are you truly that nervous about the upcoming battle?’

Dimitri frowned. He glanced down at the desk and saw a map there. He could make out a river and bridges, and several topographical marks. The landscape looked familiar, but he could not place it.

‘Battle?’ he asked, still trying to recall where he had seen the map before.

‘The Battle of the Eagle and Lion,’ Byleth said. ‘I know that you are eager to win the competition, but if it is making you worry this much perhaps it would be better for you to sit it out.’

No. Goddess, no.

Dimitri looked back up at Byleth. Her eyes were empty of expression now, their pale green reflecting his own face. His hair fell to his shoulders. He glanced down and saw his armour.

‘No,’ he sobbed.

‘Dimitri? What’s wrong?’

Dimitri was still holding Byleth’s hands. He used them to pull her closer.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘Please be real.’

‘What are you talking about? I am real.’

‘No,’ Dimitri said, his voice breaking. ‘No, you are not. Because when we fought the Battle of the Eagle and Lion…when you told me that Ingrid should fall back…you were not the Enlightened One.’

The room crackled and shattered to a thousand pieces. Each shard seemed to cut into Dimitri’s very soul. He covered his face with his hands, falling to his knees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this chapter broke my heart. But I wanted to explore the softer Dimitri buried under all that pain (i.e. needed a break from the bloodlust). I also like the idea that white magic temporarily cleanses the mind, allowing Dimitri to face his buried emotions.


	3. Tasteless Gratitude

‘Professor,’ Dimitri breathed.

‘Then you have woken up.’

‘Don’t go...’

‘Careful, now. This happens sometimes with white magic. The power can affect the mind as well as the body.’

The cobwebs of the dream cleared from Dimitri’s mind as he fell back to reality. He was lying on his back on a cold stone floor. He groaned as he realised the ache throughout his body.

‘Don’t move too much. Although the injury was not life-threatening, I performed a significant healing. You may feel a bit groggy or disorientated.’

Dimitri opened his eyes. Well, he opened one eye. The right side of the world remained black. But he knew he had opened both eyes.

Something swelled in his chest. It wasn’t fear, exactly. Or panic. It was almost a numb emotion. An odd, logical dread.

‘I cannot see,’ Dimitri stated.

A narrow, unfamiliar face suddenly hovered above him. The man’s small brown eyes were dwarfed by a large nose and oiled moustache. A single opal dangled from his ear. The slightness of his chin matched the strange pitch of his voice as he spoke, his eyebrows downturned and pupils darting about as though attempting to look at a dozen things at once.

‘From both eyes or just the one?’

‘The right one,’ Dimitri answered.

The man tutted. ‘That is a relief. For a moment I feared that I had missed something. That would be most unlike me.’

‘A relief?’ Dimitri echoed.

The man drew back a little. ‘I was able to heal up the scratches fine. There is some scarring, but I was even able to heal the surface of your eye to a degree. Which is not, may I add, a common ability even for a mage of my calibre.’ He sighed. ‘But alas, I could not save your sight. I can encourage the physical healing but...well, the damage is too severe.’

Dimitri exhaled. He lifted his hand, trembling, to his right eye. He could feel the strange spider web of scars across the skin surrounding his eye. He could feel that his eye was still there. But when he again focussed on opening it, he still could not see.

‘It feels the normal,’ Dimitri said slowly.

The man inhaled. ‘Well, to explain, as I said I can encourage the physical healing. That would be the appearance and the structure of the eye. But what we do not know is exactly how the eye sees. It is knowledge that escapes us, no matter how much we study! So although I can make the eye appear normal, I cannot make it function…’

The words were nonsense that somehow added up to a single truth. Dimitri was blind in his right eye. He could not see. He was blind.

Still the nonsense fell from the man’s mouth.

‘Shut up,’ Dimitri said.

The man immediately ceased talking, drawing back a little.

Dimitri sat up. His head spun a little as he did so, but he needed to move. If he didn’t do something, he would go mad. Or scream. Or weep. Already his mind was running leagues back and forth. Trying to understand what the mage was saying. Trying to comprehend what this meant for his life, for his purpose.

How would he avenge his father this way?

‘How will I kill them?’ Dimitri asked.

The man paled, all pomposity draining away. ‘Kill?’ he squeaked.

‘I must destroy her,’ Dimitri said. ‘If I cannot see, I cannot do it.’

‘She is already dead,’ the man said.

Dimitri’s stomach twisted as he heard his father and Glenn begin to howl. He reached out and grabbed the man’s shirt. The man squealed again, like a pig.

‘What do you mean?’ he demanded. ‘I have to kill her! It has to be me!’

The man threw an arm out. ‘Over there! I killed her while she was attacking you!’

Dimitri turned his head. The body of the female mage was sprawled on the floor, blood crusted over a wound in her back. He must have been unconscious for hours.

‘I considered just running,’ the man was babbling. ‘I was able to escape my restraints while you were fighting them. But it seemed wrong, leaving you to die after you saved my life…’

Dimitri shoved the man away.

‘Get out,’ he growled at the mage.

Dimitri swung himself to his knees, intending to stand. But the movement made him dizzy and he had to stop. At least the wound on his leg didn’t hurt anymore. A silver lining.

The mage had retreated a few feet away. As he stood watching Dimitri from that safe distance, he puffed up a little.

‘I’ll have you know that if I hadn’t healed your eye, you may have died of blood loss!’ he said.

‘Just my luck,’ Dimitri snarled. ‘Do you want a reward?’

‘You should at least show a modicum of gratitude.’

Dimitri laughed. ‘Am I human?’

He threw his hand out towards the two dead men who lay beyond the female mage.

‘Would a human do that?’ he demanded. ‘Is a man capable of such butchery? I saved your worthless life, yes, but not for your sake. Now go and squander it away and leave me in peace.’

The man hesitated.

‘What?’ Dimitri snapped.

‘I was just thinking,’ the mage said, ‘you seem a capable person. There’s trouble everywhere one goes, these days. And I’m a valuable person. This isn’t the first time slavers have tried to take me, although it is the first time they have gotten this far…I could pay you, if you act as my bodyguard.’

Dimitri snorted.

‘Just as far as the nearest village, if you like.’

‘Unless you want to see exactly what I’m capable of, get out,’ Dimitri said.

The man was still a moment longer. Then he finally seemed to decide to quit with all his faculties and ran out the doors of the cathedral.

‘Good riddance,’ Dimitri muttered.

Dimitri crawled across to one of the cathedral’s pillars and sat against it. It was hard to admit, but even if the mage hadn’t left he would not have been able to do much about it. His body was sapped of all strength.

And he was blind. Dimitri banged his head against the pillar. It renewed the endless ache in his head, the relentless throbbing. Somehow, something else had been taken from him. Yet another part of himself had been lost to the Empire. Lost to her.

‘You really are completely incompetent,’ Glenn said, dropping down beside Dimitri. He looped an arm over Dimitri’s shoulders and rested all his weight upon it. ‘What are you going to do about this?’

‘It doesn’t make a difference,’ Dimitri said. ‘I can still beat her.’

Dimitri couldn’t see his father, but he sensed his approach to his right. Lambert loomed in the blackness, towering above Dimitri and casting a shadow over him.

‘You promised me her head. After all the pain I suffered…will you let me down?’

The thorned vines that had wrapped around Dimitri’s heart after Dedue’s death tightened, stinging some more at this newest defeat.

‘No, father,’ Dimitri stuttered. ‘I will kill her.’

‘Remember,’ Glenn said, leaning closer so that Dimitri could feel the breeze of the words on his cheek. Not his breath, because there was no breath. Glenn’s lungs were empty. ‘Your pain is nothing. Your distress is nothing. You are living. We are not.’

Dimitri pulled his knees up to his chest.

‘I know,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t worry. I will give you her head.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided not to make Dimitri lose his eye completely. After some (admittedly short) research about eye injuries and blindness, I wanted to keep Dimitri’s injury realistic to the point where a mage would be able to control bleeding and other factors that could cause death or infection. The complete loss of an eye struck me as a trauma greater than a person in Dimitri’s position could deal with, since access to surgery or medicine is pretty much negated by his situation. This being so, my head cannon is that Dimitri’s blindness is caused by an internal injury to the eye (hence the mage’s chatter about the mysteries of sight) and that he begins to wear an eye patch due to personal discomfort with his appearance, which I don’t think is too inconsistent with his personality and state of mind.
> 
> Byleth will finally be making her physical appearance in the next instalment. We are at the turning point. Thank you all for reading! The kudos and comments really mean a lot.


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